


Don't forget to remember

by epersonae



Series: The Director [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: A random thought about how inoculation works, Character Study, Gen, Mindwipe, Pre-Episode 1, What if?, voidfish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-15 09:20:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12318156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epersonae/pseuds/epersonae
Summary: She probes at the lost memories like a loose tooth: so this is what it feels like. After carrying this burden for so long, it’s oddly pleasant. She eyes the pile, and for a long strange moment, considers oblivion.





	Don't forget to remember

Everything is prepared. One one side of her, a stack of books: her precious backup copies, now carefully marked with brushstrokes of black ink. On the other side, a small tank: the infant voidfish, removed from its parent.

And outside of this room, on the world far below: three friends who have forgotten their friendship. Friends who she can bring here once this task is done.

She puts in the first book — the oldest book — and her own mind reels as the volume disappears amid the sparkling lights. Something about where she was from? Why they left? And what happened there? But when she reaches for it, there's nothing. Static. She lays her hand on the smooth glass of the tank.

Of course. This is the very reason for this work; _no one_ has been inoculated to the infant.

She probes at the lost memories like a loose tooth: so this is what it feels like. After carrying this burden for so long, it’s oddly pleasant. She eyes the pile, and for a long strange moment, considers oblivion. There was a journey and its course is all still clear in her mind, but this world now _feels like_ home. That’s...comforting.

That idea lasts only for a moment, until she remembers her responsibilities. She takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders. The temptation lingers.

The cup to drink the ichor is already waiting for her, set on her desk beside the stack of books. She goes to her chair, clears a spot on the desk, takes out a sheet of paper, and writes a note to the self who will have forgotten. A reminder. She folds it neatly into a square: _Read Me._

With that nod to reality, she returns to the work. With each book in the tank, a spasm of dizziness, and yet, lightness. The majesty of the Power Bear: gone, but so too the terror of first losing Magnus, the horror of watching a second planar system devoured. Gone the joys of the beach year, the myriad stories of the robots, her paintings from Legato, the brief days in the mountain with Magnus and Fischer and the wooden ducks. But also the sorrow of abandoning Fischer’s family, the loss of the robots’ world, so many worlds. Gone the sick feeling of watching Merle’s smokey parley form dissolve into dust, gone the sensation of endlessly being hunted, watched, devoured, reborn to do it all again.

And finally, instead of the argument at the Arcanium: static. The awful year, seeing what they’d done, losing Lup, the day she made _them_ forget: all static. She tries to remember why she fed her journals to Fischer, because logically, she knows she fed so much to Fischer, but it was because of the Relic Wars, right? She founded the Bureau to find the relics, to counter the Red Robes, to save...to do something. She meant to do something important, something necessary. She meant to set something right.

The last book into the tank and she can barely stand. She leans against the desk, breathing fast and shallow. The shape in the tank is itself a blur, a memory just at the tip of her tongue, but it’s gone, gone, gone. When she closes her eyes, everything spins. Lie down, you need to lie down.

She sleeps, lit by the sparkling galaxy that she can no longer see. Her sleep is deep and dreamless all the way through the night.

She wakes, rested. On the table, a note: _Read Me_ , and a cup: filled with dark liquid.

She reads the note, sighs, drinks the liquid. Again her hands grip the desk as she again leans against it. Her shoulders slump forward as tears spring to her eyes. She brushes her fingers over a sketch pinned to the wall; she knows these faces again, knows this reference sketch for a painting she knows she must still hide. She whispers to them, “I’m so sorry. We’ll be together soon.”


End file.
